1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to preparing cigars for smoking and, more particularly, concerns a cigar punch to cut out plug from the sealed end of a cigar.
2. Description of Related Art
Cigars have long been popular. Most cigar smokers consider a fine cigar an investment in their enjoyment that is exemplified by numerous cigar shops and cigar lounges established nationwide. Fine quality cigars are manufactured with only one cut end, which is the end that the cigar smoker lights. To preserve freshness of the cigar, the Cigar manufacturers normally close or seal the opposite end, also called the smoking end, of the cigar. However, the sealed end must be cut before a cigar can be smoked, to enable the cigar smoker to draw smoke through the cigar. Opening the sealed end of a cigar is somewhat problematic.
Before the advent of cigar punches and cutters, the conventional method of opening the sealed end of a cigar had been to cut off the entire sealed end of the cigar with a sharp blade or knife, or biting off a portion of the end of the cigar intended to be placed in the mouth. Some cigar smokers still use these methods for opening the sealed end of a cigar. Both of these methods would usually result in the sealed end of a cigar that is to be placed in the mouth becoming tattered and frayed, leaving the cigar smoker with bits of tobacco in his mouth or lips and thus risking possible ingestion of tobacco. These conventional methods lessen the enjoyment and pleasure of smoking a cigar because of the frayed sealed end of the cigar and are for that reason, among others, unacceptable to the connoisseur of fine cigars.
Many cigar punches have been invented to remedy the above-mentioned deficiency. These cigar punches cut out a plug from the sealed end of a cigar and leave the remaining portion of the cigar-cap intact that prevents fraying of the cigar wrapper and avoids bits of tobacco from entering the mouth of a cigar smoker. Some connoisseurs of fine cigars also contend that properly punching the sealed end of a cigar lends itself to a more intense flavor and can help prolong the experience of smoking the cigar by tightening the draw. Additionally, punching the end of a cigar also results in a cooler smoke by preventing overheating through drawing in too much air. For these reasons, among others, connoisseurs of fine cigars prefer using a cigar punch for preparing a cigar for smoking instead of the conventional methods of biting or cutting off the sealed end of a cigar.
Conventional cigar punches generally comprise a plunger having a cutting edge or a blade end that is seated within a housing, wherein the plunger is pushed outwardly to extend out of the housing thereby, exposing the cutting edge or blade end that is then inserted into the sealed end of a cigar and twisted to sever and extract a plug from the sealed end of the cigar. In these conventional cigar punches, the plunger is pushed or extended out of its housing to expose the cutting edge or blade end, thus posing a higher health and safety risk for a person in possession of these cigar punches because of the likelihood of accidentally pushing the plunger. Inadvertently pushing a plunger having a cutting edge or a blade end, for example when a conventional cigar punch is in a user's pocket, will expose the cutting edge or the blade end that can be potentially injurious to the user. Further, the cutting edge or blade end of these conventional cigar punches are likely to get easily deformed and blunted upon impact due to uniform thinness of their side surface and absence of any support in their hollow core. Dull cigar punches need to be sharpened or changed time and again because a dull cigar punch can damage a cigar being punched and can decrease the enjoyment of smoking the cigar. Yet further, in many conventional cigar punches, a plug that is cut and removed from the sealed end of a cigar remains within the cigar punch and has to be ejected manually to clean the cigar punch.
In order to overcome the above-mentioned deficiencies of conventional cigar punches, there is an unmet need for an improved cigar punch.